For the second consecutive year, Israeli President Shimon Peres has convened an imposing conference: Facing Tomorrow (Jerusalem, 20-22 October 2009) where 3,500 people were registered. Among the key speakers were British ecologist Baron David Mayer de Rothschild; Skype CEO Josh Silverman; the founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales; spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (who teaches transcendental meditation to Iraqi leaders) and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy …

… But it was the round table on “Turning Crisis into Opportunity” that created the sensation. The participants were artificial intelligence specialist Raymond Kurzweil (member of the US Army Science Advisory Board), French essayist Bernard-Henri Levy, jurist Ruth Gavinson (former member of the Winograd Commission) and diplomat Javier Solana (former NATO Secretary-General and, currently, High Representative of the European Union.

A very fit Solana declared: “Allow me to say that Israel is a member of the European Union without being a member of its institutions”. He added that Israel is an “integral part of all EU programmes”, contributing with its eminent know-how in leading technologies … (full text).